Thursday, August 31, 2017

It is with great sorrow that I have to announce that I will not be presenting Black Giant Angoras at the Indy Convention after all. The following is the short version of why.

This COD has been plagued with bad luck and betrayal. We were all set to present when enteritis reared its ugly head and took out all our juniors but 3. We need 4, and not just any 4, but the best 4.

Of course, if the person I have loved as a dear friend and trusted as we bred cooperatively since 2006 hadn't decided to part ways and get her own COD, we'd have presentation animals. When I applied for this COD, I wanted my dear friend and co-breeder Colleen Wagner on the COD with me. She said she couldn't be because she had allowed her ARBA membership to lapse, and instead suggested we put her Mom, Fran Spangle on it instead. I did so, then found out Fran was not an NARBC member, and so she was removed from the COD. Then I lost the lease on the barn I was renting, and was confronted with an AR threat, so I asked Colleen if she could temporarily take my Black Giants, since they were too valuable to risk. She did so, and I never saw them again. She said they all died.

Mind you, I gave Colleen her start in Colored Giants. I have given her countless animals over the years, never charged her a penny. She has kept the best of those breedings, and every animal she has given me back, save one, has had DQs. They either did not make weight, or they had normal fur on their paws. I knew she was keeping the best, but it was OK, because she swore that those rabbits from our bloodline that we created together would be mine for presentation.

Until she changed her mind. So I am screwed. I cannot present.

Had I known this would be the outcome, I never would have given her one single rabbit, especially when I lost the barn. I would have instead given them to my partners on the COD. I didn't, because Colleen was closer, she was my breeding partner, and I thought I could trust her. Shame on me. There were enough signs, I should have known better.

I will not be attending Convention because I don't trust myself to be in the same room.

I hope Colleen gets exactly what she deserves. As she makes her presentation to the NARBC, bear in mind that if she hadn't been a turncoat, those rabbits would have been our presentation rabbits.